


As He Falls

by TheOtherWillow



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gift Fic, M/M, Reichenbach Falls, johnlockchallenges, without-a-wish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 13:33:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherWillow/pseuds/TheOtherWillow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnlock Challenges Gift Exchange response for without-a-wish’s prompt:<br/>"Sherlock tells John that he loves him in his own unique way? Can’t be the typical ‘I love you’ heheh. Any rating, though no crazy NC-17 stuff." </p>
<p> <br/>Everything had a cost, and the price for the safety of all he’d come to realize that he held dear was waiting for him below on the uneven cobbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As He Falls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withoutawish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutawish/gifts).



> I’m sorry – I tried to find a cute, funny way to answer this prompt but when it came down to it I realized I quite literally could not beat official Canon on this one. I’d apologize for the angst, but since I’m pretty sure my prompter was the person who wrote Where I Cannot Find You, I figured they’d be able to take it. I don’t usually draw on actual paper (instead of digitally) or without a reference, so I’m not sure how it happened that I ended up doing both for this - apologies for the poor likeness! Charcoal on paper and cleaned up in Photoshop. Since the picture itself wasn’t very descriptive, I wrote an accompanying drabble to explain where my brain was. Hope you enjoy!

He gave the phone a negligent toss and raised his arms. He’d known it would come to this; planned for it even. The slow ichor drip of Moriarty’s brains from the bullet’s crater had been an unexpected variable, but not insurmountable. His schemes were still intact.

Looking down at the upturned moon of John’s stricken face, he was startled to realize how very sorry he was that it had come to this. Everything had a cost, and the price for the safety of all he’d come to realize that he held dear was waiting for him below on the uneven cobbles. Even if every contingency he’d arranged fell exactly into place, there was still so much that could go wrong…so many roads that ended with this being his final glimpse of the good doctor.

He was beginning to tip forward now, the sharp tug of gravity lifting his scarf lightly away from his chest. He knew he should look away from John, but he couldn’t seem to manage it. He was uncomfortably aware of how unlikely it was that the other man would forgive the trauma he was about to inflict upon him. Despite the fact that it was quite literally the only path Sherlock could imagine that held even the remote possibility of both of them surviving what was to come, he knew that John’s heart would interpret this as the worst kind of betrayal. A sign that Sherlock hadn’t trusted him; hadn’t thought he was capable or worth enough to share the secret, to let him help.

With a bitter huff of laughter, he acknowledged to himself as he started to drop exactly how far from the truth that was. He would never be able to make John understand. John, with his dozens of worthless little girlfriends and his notebooks packed with stumbling lines of iambic pentameter. Who saw the world, but didn’t observe. Who would never put together the thousands of little clues that lead to one irrefutable conclusion:

This was how Sherlock Holmes wrote a love letter.


End file.
